Agreed, I really love the whole wave and hope the helmet is not removable on the EP2. I will actually army build this one and may start to retire the EE one slowly. I really dig the AT-RT driver too, I am ditching the 4 I have this new one looks killer.

I also noticed they updated his hands on the Nitko to have 3 fingers. It appears they made him one of the other Nikto subspecies which to me is pretty cool. The horns are different too so I do believe it's all intentional, very General Die from the CW's. Great upgrade, There is not one figure I dislike here, good rebound from W5.

Dang, the Nikto Jedi sculpt is phenomenal! For a sculpt based off what is presumably a mask, the facial sculpt has a lot of expression to it.

I usually skip clones without a second's hesitation, but that AOTC clone sculpt looks either all-new or at least partially new, and the helmet doesn't look removable. I'm definitely picking this guy up.

Lando's a meh, he does look impressive, though, but I have to say that Dagobah Luke is a win, I like it a lot more than the '10 LC Hoth Luke.

And has anyone else noticed how cool Nikto Jedi's cloak is?!

Logged

"'Want to see a trick I learned at the Sith Temple? It's called "'Force Choke.'"

-The AT-RT Driver is surprisingly cool. I won't retire mine, they're good sculpts, however I will buy 2 of these I'm guessing. Now if they'd put THIS guy out on the Clone Wars AT-RT, then I'd probably buy quite a few of that.

-The AOTC Trooper is pretty slick looking. I plan to nab some of him, though again I'll certainly not retire the original SA figure by any means. That sculpt has been great, still is great... this one is certainly nice looking though, and I do believe I see ball-socket wrists there. Nice. It's maybe the best new point of articulation they've made.

-The Nikto Jedi is cool, and I love the softgoods. they're very worn looking. The figure is great overall though, so I have every intent of picking up a couple of this guy.

-Dagobah Landing Luke... Again, very cool looking. I see no height difference however, just comparing him in the bubble to the Clones. The Clones should be average sized, Luke shorter... It appears to me he's got a good bit of space above him compared to the Clones, in their respective bubbles. I think he'll be very similar in every way to the last Pilot Luke.

One ****** thing though... That helmet, still not dirty. I wish Hasbro would go the extra mile to give him a black wash over his pilot helmet so it looks more accurate.

-Lando... I compared him as well since there seemed to be questions on him being tall, and again he seems to be average or a hair shorter than average compared to the Clones. I'm loving the Lando General Pilot the most though. removable cape, SA, looks to be another removable shoulder holster... Greatness top to bottom so far. I wish the cape had a thread for the "tie" though, rather than the wide band. That looks odd but I'll certainly live with it.

-Skiffmaster Weequay... Very cool. Love all the details like the blonde braids, the poofy quilted tunic... He comes with a pike he doesn't have IIRC, and so that's pretty slick. Hasbro knocked out a figure that's been demanded for years and years. People have wanted the Skiffmaster since I started collecting Vintage when I was 15 and I recall guys customizing him because they wanted that figure so bad. It's amazing it took this many years (decades) for him to get a figure. And it only makes me want the original Weequay resculpted that much more, haha.

I hope this wave will be released in late FEB/March. Seeing all of the production package shots for this wave it seems like it cannot be too far off. I would love to see no long hiatus this year with releases. Even if it is spaced out I would like to see at least 2-3 more waves after W5 before the summer lull.

Well, in my area, there's not a whole lot of room for more vintage unless the retailers expand the vintage sections, so I'm not thinking that Wave 6 can be anywhere close to hitting retail...

Wal-Mart - About half the stores have room for more figures, but they only have 4-8 pegs. Seems the stores with a lot of pegs for them are packed already with past waves.

Target - A complete joke, they ordered way too much of the first wave. It's like Irvin Kernsher threw up ESB figures all over the place.

TRU - Plenty of room for figures, but they're not getting any in... and at $10 per figure, why buy there anyway?

For the first time in years, I'm getting closer to buying cases online again because the retail situation sucks... it took 4-5 months for the first 3 waves to really hit retail, so I don't know that we'll be seeing Waves 4, 5, and 6 all hit in a short timespan like that. I hope that Wave 5 is a short run because it's going to cause a backlog... the wave is just bad. But hopefully it does move decent to prevent a log jam... hopefully there's some kickbutt sales coming soon...

In my area while you can still find Denger and 4-Lom but it is pretty empty here. There are less pegs than X-Mas time but there is plenty of room for figures except at TRU. They are clogged with ESB/ROTS waves at $10.99.

Chew, being a serious collector like your self I am surprised that you do not order by the case. It's worth it and you can always return the crappy repacks when you purchase other figures for customs/army builders. That said, when you find an AT-AT for $13 it puts a very BMF dent in my argument .

Our area has been pretty slow lately as well. Wal-Mart is packed full, but the majority of them are Sandtroopers and/or the ROTS Clonetrooper. Other than that it is just a smattering of the ESB/ROTS waves, with maybe a couple from the ROTJ wave. Our closest Target has exactly two figures on each of four pegs, and I'm pretty sure the figures there are ROTS Anakin, 4-LOM (four of them), Endor Soldier, Ackbar, and Sandtrooper. I was actually surprised to see the Endor Rebel and Ackbar sit there that long. TRU hasn't had anything since the ESB wave really, and is still sitting on some of those.

Anyways, as far as this wave goes, I think it looks pretty good as well. I'm especially excited for the Lando, Weequay, and Fi Eck Sirch figures. Luke looks pretty nice as well, and is a good "different" version of that character. I still have trouble getting too excited about clonetroopers, but I'll admit that the AT-RT Driver does look pretty nice. I had intended on passing on that one, but may grab a couple now. Still on the fence with the AOTC trooper. That may be my favorite "clonetrooper", but I probably have plenty of the previous version(s) so we'll have to wait and see. They all look great, but I'm really trying to make a conscious effort to not buy figures "just because" this year. I don't have all that much display space at this point, and unless it is a big enough improvement to retire the previous versions of figures, I really have to give it some thought.

In my area, the ROTS Clone Troopers are everywhere in abundance... the helmets on that figure (and not just the yellowing) really killed that figure and all through St. Louis this is even a worse pegwarmer than 4-LOM.

And I bet Hasbro doesn't even realize that if they had invested a bit to make the helmet better, this wouldn't have happened. Instead they probably think that people are sick of clones.

Anyways, Hasbro's case assortments have really turned me away from ordering online for a while now... I haven't ordered a single case of anything since TAC... and yeah, you are right I could return the crappy repacks to Wal-Mart or something, but those are already pegwarming bad enough in my area so I just don't want to add to the backup at retail.

I don't know that I'd make the claim that a new helmet would've helped that figure sell better at all really. A specific paintjob to a specific legion maybe would've. I think there is an "I'm cloned out" sentiment though that transcends any smaller problems the figure has with its sculpt.

The yellowing is a far bigger issue to me than the helmet, personally. But does that deter the parent/grandparent/kid buying?

I think when you add in that this is basically, again, competing with itself on Legends cards... Which one would the typical shopper buy then, ya know? It was a wasted figure slot to me since I don't think people were giddy to get all white Clones back out there unless they're maybe AOTC style Clones. I think that, plus saturation, probably were a bigger issue really.

Repaints to specific unit designations would help, but if there's Legends ROTS Clones out too, it seems like a real conflict that has hurt the line this year, as has been discussed quite a bit since August it seems, haha.

The yellowing issue aside, I see so many rants about that helmet I think it's a legit complaint, just like the Stormtrooper rant that's circulating on various forums right now. And it's not just the helmet's size and yellowing - that helmet tends to have bad paint applications for whatever reasons (like the visor line, when it actually IS painted, it's sometimes bleeding onto the other parts of the helmet), and the armor on it makes this guy look like he's fat. In my eyes, this figure has so many flaws with it, it's ridiculous.

It's obvious that having another Phase 2 clone (actually a superior version) in the Legends line was a dumb move on Hasbro's part too though. I think they would have been much better off to use that Legends version on a vintage card, with some sort of slick weathering paint scheme like on the Evolutions clone than what we got a few years back. And if the orange clone is produced in the same numbers as this one, I would not be surprised if it's going to have some pegwarming issues as well, but I doubt it will be quite as extreme... and that upcoming Phase I clone? If there's still Legends versions of that design on the pegs, I still think the new vintage version will do just fine because it's a much better figure - definitely better than the Vintage Phase 2 trooper that's on pegs everywhere.